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To Broil Fowls

A whole fowl is seasoned, broiled over a fire, and served with pickled mushrooms or mushroom sauce, lemon, and liver and gizzard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Broil Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and truss the fowl as for boiling.

  2. Cut it open down the back and wipe the inside clean.

  3. Season the inside with pepper and salt.

  4. Prepare a clear fire and set the gridiron over it.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the fowl on the gridiron with the inside facing the fire.

  2. Optionally, brush it with egg and sprinkle grated bread on top.

  3. Broil until it is a fine brown, ensuring the fleshy side does not burn.

  4. Serve on a hot dish with pickled mushrooms or mushroom sauce.

  5. Garnish with lemon slices and the liver and gizzard.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through over the fire while the skin browns.
Melted butter
Carries fat to the surface, helping the skin brown evenly under the heat.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, browned crust on the surface of the bird.
Egg (in the method)
Gives the surface a glossy coating that helps the crumbs adhere and brown.

The step that matters

Broil until fine brown without burning the fleshy side. The fleshy side is thin and cooks quickly, so it can scorch before the skin is evenly browned. Keeping it at a moderate distance from the fire and turning the bird as needed lets the heat brown the surface and cook the meat through without charring.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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